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Gold9472
08-09-2005, 01:47 PM
Mother protesting at Crawford ranch speaks out

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Raw_Story_Mother_protesting_at_Crawford_ranch_spea ks__0809.html

John Byrne
8/8/2005

RAW STORY got a chance to chat late Monday with Cindy Sheehan, the mother who lost her son in Iraq and is holding vigil outside President George W. Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch.

August 8, 2005—Cindy Sheehan is angry and exhausted. Camped outside President Bush's 1600-acre Texas ranch, the California mom's throat hurts; she has yet another interview at 11 p.m. By the road, where Sheehan stands, there’s little friendly greeting: from the outside, a passerby can see only pastures, barbed fences, and signs that warn would-be-tourists from stopping, standing or parking.

Sheehan says she will camp outside the President's ranch until the end of August, or he meets her. After a long, hot day, she expresses amazement that she is even there.

"It's incredible and it's amazing to me because I got this idea last Wednesday," she told RAW STORY. "I wrote an email and sent it out to my whole group about that and it turned to this amazing action and thousands and thousands of people wanted to help and be involved."

Even reporters, she says, have quietly expressed their support.

"A lot of them stay after they've done an interview and after they're done taking pictures," she says, "a lot of them say, I agree with you, and I think what you’re doing is great."

In part, Sheehan credits the Internet for the swarm of attention her protest has garnered.

"I'm sure the Internet is why this thing has got huge," she remarks. "A lot of the mainstream media is surprised, like, where did you come from lady? And I said I've been doing this for months, it's not like I just appeared out of nowhere."

Yesterday, there was a flurry of activity in the blogosphere after Sheehan’s entourage had a brush with the police. The dispute centered around whether protesters were standing on private property.

"Earlier this afternoon the place that we're at is this big triangular area where three roads intersect and make a triangle, and we were told it was county property and we were shown the easements eight feet off the road,” she says. "So today when we went into town because there was going to be a thunder and lightning storm... they said they just found out that the roads were private property."

They’ve now moved to another location.

"The only reason we got to be there is that the people who owned the property haven't complained yet," she notes.

Sheehan's crusade to get Bush to answer questions echoes the famous line from Vietnam, "How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Her vigil caught new attention Monday when the conservative Drudge Report accused Sheehan of changing her story.

But as RAW STORY later found, the Gold Star Mother questioned the war even before she got face time with Bush last summer.

"We haven't been happy with the way the war has been handled," Sheehan told a paper last June. "The president has changed his reasons for being over there every time a reason is proven false or an objective reached."

After the meeting, she lauded Bush, saying, "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."

Today, she says her comments came at a time when she was still in shock at her son’s death. Casey, a Humvee mechanic, was in Iraq just five days before he was killed last April.

Sheehan recalls her meeting with Bush as "surreal."

"He didn't act like he was somebody who was consoling a grieving family, he acted like we were at a tea party, and we left feeling a lot worse," she recalls.

"At the end of the interview [with Bush] I said, "Why were we invited? We didn't vote for you in 2000, we're not going to vote for you this year, and he said, "Mom, this is not about politics. So when he said that—maybe because I was in shock—I believed him."

It was during the Republican National Convention, she says, that her feelings surrounding the meeting soured.

"He said at the RNC that he meets with families, he feels their pain, it's really hard work because he watches the news reports on TV, it's really hard work being a commander chief... and when he used it at the RNC, he used it for political gain, and that's when I thought I can use it too."

On Saturday, National Security Advisor Steven Hadley and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Joe Hagin met her outside the ranch, listening to mothers’ concerns for about 45 minutes. Sheehan says she was disappointed.

"First of all, I didn't know who they were," she remarks. "They came out and introduced themselves and we talked, and I guess I was supposed to be very impressed and very intimidated."

"I told them, I don't want to be lied to, I want to meet with the president—that's an oxymoron—and I thanked them for coming out," she adds.

"At one point they said that George believes there are weapons of mass destruction," she continues, "and they said something else to me, and I said, I may be a grieving mother but I'm not stupid. I don't believe you even believe what you’re saying."

As we wrap up, the normally ebullient mother turns silent when I inquire about her son, who she says was lied to by military recruiters.

Casey "was regular Army and he didn't tell us anything," she mutters. "He didn't want to go but he said it was his duty and he had to go."